USUPhilosophy

The Department of Languages, Philosophy, and communication Studies hosts a student symposium each spring. This year the symposium will be the afternoon of April 21st. The idea is to provide a forum for students to present their ideas and research to a broader audience. You might want to present an idea on your own, or with a group in the form of a panel discussion, or with a group in the form of a roundtable discussion. Each kind of presentation (solo, panel, roundtable) should be conceived as taking 20 minutes or so. If you or a group of you is interested, you should send a 200-word abstract (just a short description of what you’re doing, along with a title) to christa.jones (at) usu.edu. The deadline for abstracts is this Friday, March 17th.

USU Philosophy was well represented at the “The Roots of American Constitutionalism” – Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference over the weekend.  We spent the weekend discussing federalism and anti-federalism, as well as what must lie behind constitutional order (virtue, liberal education, etc).

ISI is dedicated to a robust investigation of the core ideas and great books that are behind the American founding and western civilization more generally, the sort of thing one is unlikely to get at universities today.  It is intellectually conservative in bent, but is a big tent and encourages dissent (several times throughout the conference, faculty implored students to disagree with them).  ISI has chapters across the country, including our new ISI “CS Lewis Society” chapter.  We do book clubs and discussions locally (books and dinners provided by ISI), and then students can take advantage of all expense paid conferences and honors programs that focus on great ideas and leadership (networking, etc) — typically at really nice hotels with exceptional faculty (myself excluded).  Contact Dr Kleiner if you are interested.

Our esteemed group from this weekend, from left to right: Catherina Aust, Richard Sherlock, Gavin Mill, Jennifer Burris, Jonathan Toronto, Millie Tullis, Chase Robbins, Taylor Wyatt, Harrison Kleiner, Emma Wright

Thursday, Feb 16, 4:30pm in RWST 113

We will have a visiting scholar – R.J. Snell – on campus this Thursday.  He will be presenting on a 2oth century philosopher named Bernard Lonergan.  Though Lonergan is under-read these days, he was quite famous in his time (Time Magazine ran a feature on him in the 1970s, calling him the finest philosophical thinker of the 20th century).  Dr Snell will introduce us to Lonergan, what he had to say, and why he is significant.

His talk will be called, “Authentic Subjectivity is Genuine Objectivity: Self-Knowledge and the Hope of Philosophy.”

All are welcome!

 

It’s time for another Flash! Philosophy event. This is when students present some tasy morsel of an idea – it could be something funny or serious, original or heard/read somewhere else, whatever or whatever. It’s mainly a chance for students (and faculty) to have fun discussing ideas. If you’re interested in presenting something – and you should be! – send Huenemann a note at charlie.huenemann@usu.edu.

Tuesday, February 21st

Main 207

7 p.m.

Students, please be aware of the Brett Blanch Scholarship! It is available to philosophy majors at least one semester away from graduation, with at least a 3.5 gpa in philosophy classes. The deadline for application is March 3rd. More details in this pdf:

blanchaward-2017

(If you’re not sure whether you qualify, just ask a philosophy prof!)